Zenit:
Gespeichert in:
| Beteiligte Personen: | , |
|---|---|
| Format: | Buch |
| Sprache: | Nichtbestimmte Sprache |
| Veröffentlicht: |
Beograd
Narodna Biblioteka Srbije [u.a.]
2008
|
| Schlagwörter: | |
| Links: | http://bvbr.bib-bvb.de:8991/F?func=service&doc_library=BVB01&local_base=BVB01&doc_number=018950586&sequence=000003&line_number=0001&func_code=DB_RECORDS&service_type=MEDIA http://bvbr.bib-bvb.de:8991/F?func=service&doc_library=BVB01&local_base=BVB01&doc_number=018950586&sequence=000004&line_number=0002&func_code=DB_RECORDS&service_type=MEDIA |
| Beschreibung: | In kyrill. Schr., serb. - Zsfassung in engl. Sprache u.d.T.: The Zenit periodical |
| Umfang: | 524 S. Ill. |
| ISBN: | 9788670351820 |
Internformat
MARC
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| 500 | |a In kyrill. Schr., serb. - Zsfassung in engl. Sprache u.d.T.: The Zenit periodical | ||
| 630 | 0 | 7 | |a Zenit |g Zeitschrift, Belgrad |0 (DE-588)4480238-9 |2 gnd |9 rswk-swf |
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| 700 | 1 | |a Subotić, Irina |e Verfasser |4 aut | |
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Datensatz im Suchindex
| _version_ | 1819253689326501888 |
|---|---|
| adam_text | Садржај
11
Увод
Видосава
Голубовић
15
Часопис
Зенит
(1921-1926)
Ирина
Суботић
45
Визуелна
култура
часописа Зенит и Зенитових издаша
77
Летопис
Зенита и зенитизма
80 1921
-бр.
1-Ю
Протозенитизам.
-
Авантуризам духа и
његов продор
у космички простор.
Почеци зенитизма.
-
Формирање
програма
и трупе.
-
Космичко
начело
у
представљању
човека
и уметника, као и
међународног уметничког
братства.
-
Идеја
обнове палог
човека,
неправедно прегаженог Првим светским ратом.
-
Дада
je
велика
апстракција.
-
Михайло
С. Петров.
-
Осамостаљена
песничка реч
на
равни
текста и простора.
- Paris brennt. -
Дихотомија
Исток-Запад.
112 1922
-бр.
11-19/20
Зенитистичка
антитрадиција.
-
Балканизација
Европе и
Барбарогеније.
-
Руски
Берлин.
-
Поезија
писана у жанру радио-филмског лиризма.
-
Футуристичке
синтезе.
-
Надреализам, кубистички.
-
Друга провала варвара
-
пропагандни
пут у Немачку.
-
Они
he
доћи
-
зенитистичко позориште.
145 1923
-бр.
21-24
Зенитизам живи изван часописа
-
манифестације
и
акције:
Загреб
-
Београд
-
Самобор
-
Сисак
-
Топуско
-
Петрю-ьа
-
Сарајево
-
Љубљана
-
Трет.
-
Метафизички аспект у
спознаји љубави
према жени.
-
О
изложби Руске
уметности у Берлину.
-
Синкретизам уметничких облика
-
спој поезије
и
филма.
-
Полемика
са
хрватском културом.
1924
-бр.
25-35 168
Предност ликовне уметности над
књижевним
стваралаштвом: Прва Зенишова
међународна
изложба
нове
уметности.
-
Зенитозофија.
-
Програмска уметност
Jo
Клека.
-
Преношење интересовања
на архитектуру, модерну рекламу, плакат.
-
Захтев да уметност
испуњава социјалну функцију.
-
Полемика око француског
надреализма: Пол Дерме
-
Андре
Бретон.
-
Апелативно
о
културној сарадњи
Јужних
Словена
са Русима.
1925
-бр.
36
и
37 195
Превласт
фотографије.
-
Надреализам.
-
Књижевна
и уметничка
левица.
-
Балканизам у музици: Штолцер Славенски.
-
Утилитарна
прагматизација
позоришта.
-
Дијалог Маринети-Пољански.
-
Пројекат
футуристичко-
зенитистичког часописа.
-
Оријентација према фактографији.
-
Балкан
-
шести
континент
-
просторни центар
зенитизма.
1926 -
бр.
38-43 215
Петогодишњи јубилеј.
-
Историзација
часописа и покрета:
Филмједног
књижевног
покрета
иједне
духовне
револуције.
-
Нови манифести.
-
Нагласак
на документарно)
природи прилога.
-
Метафизичка
струја
зенитизма.
-
Даље
интересовање
за архитектуру и
фотографију.
-
Изложбе у Београду, Загребу и
Москви.
-
Политички
обојене манифестације
у Београду и Паризу.
-
Забрана и
прогон.
1927-1941 243
Постзенитизам: Париз, Београд
Биографије сарадника
Зенита
289
Библиографија
часописа Зенит и Библиотеке Зенит
397
Литература о Зениту и зенитизму
421
Резимеи на енглеском
469
Регистар имена
487
Contents
11
Introduction
Vidosava
Golubović
15
The Zenit
Periodical
(1921-1926)
Irina
Subotić
45
The Visual Culture of the
Zenit
Periodical and Its Publications
77
A chronology
oí
Zenit
and zenitism
80 1921 -
nos.
HO
Protozenitism.
-
Adventurousness of spirit and its breakthrough into cosmos.
The beginnings of zenitism.
-
The establishment of the programme and the
group.
-
The cosmic principle in the representation of man and artist, as well as the
international artistic brotherhood.
-
The idea of the restoration of the fallen man,
unjustly downtrodden by the First World War.
-
Dada
is a great abstraction.
-
Mihailo
S.
Petrov.
-
The poetic word made independent on the level of text and space.
-
Paris
brennt. -
The East-West dichotomy.
112 1922 -
nos.
11-19/20
The
zenitist
antitradition.
-
The Balkanisation of Europe and the Barbarogenius.
-
The Russian Berlin.
-
Poetry written in the genre of radio-filmic lyricism.
-
Futurist
syntheses.
-
Surrealism, of the cubist variety.
-
The second onslaught of barbarians
-
a
propagandist journey to Germany.
-
They will come
-
the
zenitist
theatre.
145 1923 -
nos.
21-24
Zenitism lives outside the periodical
-
events and campaigns: Zagreb
-
Belgrade
-
Sisak
-
Topusko
-
Petrinja
-
Sarajevo
-
Samobor
-
Ljubljana
-
Trieste.
-
The
metaphysical aspects of the knowledge of love towards a woman.
-
On the exhibition
of Russian art in Berlin.
-
The syncretism of art forms
-
the joining of poetry and film.
-
A Polemic with Croatian culture.
1924
-nos.
25-35 168
The supremacy of fine arts over literature: The First
Zenit
International Exhibition of
New Art.
-
Zenitosophy.
-
The programmatic art of Jo
Klek.
-
Shifting focus onto
architecture, modern advertising, posters.
-
The demand that art should fulfil a social
function.
-
The polemic over French surrealism: Paul
Dermée-André
Breton.
-
Appeal
for cultural cooperation between South Slavs and Russians.
1925 -
nos.
36-37 195
Tlie
supremacy of photography.
-
Surrealism.
-
The literary and artistic left.
-
Balkan-
ism in music: Stoker.
-
Utilitarian pragmatisation of the theatre.
-
The Marinetti-
Poljanski dialogue.
-
Project of a futurist-zenitist periodical.
-
Orientation towards
factography.
-
The Balkans
-
the sixth continent
-
the spatial centre of zenitism.
1926 -
nos.
38-43 215
The fifth anniversary jubilee.
-
Historisation of the periodical and the movement:
Λ
film of a literary movement ana a spiritual revolution.
-
New manifestos.
-
Emphasis on
the documentary nature of contributions.
-
The metaphysical stream of zenitism.
-
In¬
terest in architecture and photography persists.
-
Exhibitions in Belgrade, Zagreb and
Moscow.
-
Politically intoned events in Belgrade and Paris.
-
Ban and persecution.
1927-1941 243
Postzenitism: Paris, Belgrade
Biographies of
Zenit
collaborators
289
Bibliography of the
Zenit
periodical and the
Zenit library
397
Literature on
Zenit
and zenitism
421
Summaries in English
469
Index of names
487
Vidosava Golubović
lhe
Zenit
Periodical
(1921-1926)
In February
1921,
in Zagreb, the poet Ljubomir
Місіс
launched
Zenit, an
interna¬
tional magazine for art and culture, as it said in the subtitle; around its
zenitist
poetics
and aesthetics, the magazine gathered representatives of all branches of art, both in the
narrow and a broader meaning of the term
-
of poetry, literature, fine arts, theatre, film,
architecture, music
-
from Yugoslavia, Russia and the West. A total of
43
issues were
published, containing contributions in various languages (Ivan Golls The
Zenitist
Manifesto was printed in German). After being published regularly for over two years,
and after switching the editorial office from Zagreb to Belgrade (the last Zagreb issue,
no.
24,
was published in May
1923),
Zemr was published irregularly, occasionally com¬
ing out in the form of a multiple issue
(Zenit no.
26-33
was published as an eightfold
issue). Apart from the irregularity of its publication, it was characterised by changes of
format and changes in outlook in terms of
pictural-graphie
design.
The material contributed to the magazine was not classified according to any par¬
ticular principle: sometimes the lead-in text was a manifesto, other times poetry or a
polemical text. As opposed to the relatively irregular arrangement of the material pub¬
lished, the editor introduced a permanent column entitled
Macroscope ,
containing,
for the most part, polemical, critical and informative texts. Among other things, the
column was intended to react quickly and in a lively manner to the latest trends in litera¬
ture and art, in Yugoslavia and abroad, to provide information and at the same time take
a view, all this using a very austere kind of language.
From the very first to the last issue, the periodical was edited by its founder Ljubomir
Micie. In
the first issues, immediately after launching the magazine, the editorial staffcon-
sisted of a number of members, who represented the periodical outside of Zagreb, where it
was published then. Thus
Boško Tokin
was its representative from Belgrade, from Prague
it was Lj. Micics brother
Branko
Ve
Poljanski,
and from Paris
Rastko Petrović.
Tlie
co-
editorial activities of the French-German poet and writer Ivan Goll led to great changes
in the make-up of the editorial staff. Immediately after Goll
s
entry in the editorial staff* B.
Tokin suddenly suspended his editorial cooperation with
Zenit.
As a co-editor, Goll was
active until issue no.
13,
published in
1922.
From then onwards,
Місіс
edited
Zenit
on his
own, occasionally with the cooperation of his brother
Branko.
Zenit was
launched at a watershed cultural, political and historical moment: it was
preceded by events such as the First World War and all its consequences, the October
469 ·
Summary
Revolution
(its echo is felt in
Branko
Ve Poljanslďs
October Manifesto , published in
his authorial periodical Svetokret [Worldturn] in
1921,
wherein the author draws a line
from the Universe
-
the turning of the Earth around its axis in cosmos
-
to the inner,
subjective revolution of the spirit), the establishment of a common state, made up of
three peoples, separated until then by their immanent processes of national develop¬
ment, and the post-war Europe as a scene where various avant-garde groups and move¬
ments pursued their activities. Apart from this,
Zenit
may be viewed as a dialectical
moment of provocation and a turning point in connection with the aesthetisation of
the Balkans and its culture, which, until then, had not participated in the artistic and
historical events of Europe on an equal footing. These external factors left their mark on
the initial programme concept of the periodical, mediated through the most general of
slogans about the negation of the war and the building of an international brotherhood
of artists, along with a radical calling into question of the sentry/border guard-like and
the soldier-like destiny of the Yugoslav people and arguing in favour of creating a new
man and a new art.
The postulate about art as a stimulus to life and the belief in its role in the transfor¬
mation of man are based on the ideas of Dostoyevsky and Nietzsche: Beauty will save
the world. Around this more or less general ideational and aesthetic platform and the
desire to mobilise the post-war atmosphere of spirits ,
Місіс
gathered poets and writ¬
ers from the cities and cultural centres of the entire Yugoslavia: from Zagreb, Belgrade,
Ljubljana,
Novi Sad, Vinkovci,
Sombor,
Split and
Zemun.
Also, the magazine sponta¬
neously established cooperation with Prague
(Dragan Aleksić),
Paris
(Rastko Petrović,
Miloš Crnjanski, Dušan Matić)
and Vienna
(Zlatko
Gorjan),
where members of the Yu¬
goslav intelligentsia found themselves having entered university studies after the end of
the First World War. On the other hand, the idea about the mobilisation of spirits was
extended and became the foundation ofZenit s aesthetic programme through the slo¬
gan of the need for peace and cooperation among nations, countries, continents.
Місіс
wanted, first of all, to abolish national boundaries and to establish contact with the liter¬
ary and artistic avant-garde of Europe, Russia, both Americas and China, that is to say,
with those trends, movements and persons that were, according to his own evaluation,
of topical interest and aesthetically purposeful. A metaphor of the above is
Місіс
s
pro¬
grammatic text Shimmy in the Graveyard at the Latin Quarter
(1922),
its source of
inspiration being of cubist-constructivist provenance, with a characteristic radio-film
stylisation
and with Rodchenkos kiosk as the spatial centre and the gathering place of
zenitists from Yugoslavia and from abroad with the exception of Marinetti, who got left
out on account of the insistence of the futurists on the national homogeneity of Italians
-
R T.
Marinetti: Only Italians can be futurists.
Outside this level of the magazine,
Zenit,
as the organ of a particular artistic group,
aimed to aesthetically establish and profile the Balkan formula of the avant-garde move¬
ment, so that, through its original programme and the attendant artistic practice, it
would be on a par with the other avant-garde movements in Europe of the time. In order
Summary I
470
to achieve this, it argued
ш
favour of the artistic and cultural emancipation of the Bal¬
kans from the West and from Europe, for a dethronement of its traditional values, exem¬
plified
noi
by Pushkin, as in the Russian futurists manifesto entitled A Slap in the Face
of the Ruling Taste (signed by D. Burliuk, Kruchenykh, Mayakovsky and Khlebnikov),
but by
Molière,
Dante, Shakespeare, Kant, and in favour of turning the process of the
Europeanisation of the Balkans around, in the direction of a Balkanisation of Europe.
It prophesied that Europe would perish, condemned it for its lack of ethical principles,
comparing it to an old immoral woman on the basis of negative revaluations of mytho¬
logical and cultural associations and analogies. The turning-point forces of the project
of the Balkanisation of Europe were based upon a request for a revolution of art that
would be achieved through the expected and wished-for renewal of Europe by means of
a Balkanocentric neobarbarism and
primitivism,
that is to say, they were founded upon
that mood characteristic of Western, and especially of Russian avant-garde. Zenitists
praised the New Balkans, the new Balkan culture and art as the main postulates of their
programme, on the grounds of a healthy Balkan dynamism; they proclaimed the new
man, personified by the great individual Barbarogenius, as a cultural hero who intro¬
duces an essentially new principle in the existing order of things in life and art. To begin
with, it was a lone, separate figure who, like Nietzsche s Zarathustra, delivers a sermon
from the mountains, appeals to man to strive for great heights, above mediocrity, then
it became a mystical figure of man-hero, thought out in the key of cosmism, spiritually
opposed to the patronage of Madam Europe, and in the 1930 s, during
Micić s
exile in
France, he became the literary hero of the latter
s
novel Barbarogenius Deciviliser.
In the course of its five-year lifespan, the periodical passed through several devel¬
opment phases, which left a mark on its formal characteristics, structure, programmatic
and artistic activities. The lack of a firm programme core in the first issues of the periodi¬
cal gave it the character of an international almanac. The intermingling of lyrical motifs
and methods with the genre of travel writing was the organisational principle of M. Crn-
janski
s
poetry ( Girl ). The poetry of Lj.
Місіс
was not yet programmatic in character: it
was machinist, after the model of the other futurism, and autobiographical
-
which was
a mark of modern poetic expression.
Branko
Ve
Poljanski
encloses the poetic subject
within the circle of his poetry. In the poem In the Sign of a Circle , he resorted to the
principle of verse shifting, dynamically combining the graphic-versificatory method of
circular writing of verses with semantic elements. As far as
Boško
Tokin is concerned,
he played a very important role when it came to imparting knowledge about the cultural
and literary trends within the framework of French and Italian modernism and avant-
garde. Thematically, he revealed to the local public renaissancism, miraculism, a term
taken over
from
the post-war film theory in France. He presented the futurist theme of
aviation and the ideas of the futurist-pilot F. Azari. While the poems of Rastko
Petrović
were created on the basis of interest in archaic, primitive cultures,
Stanislav Vinaver
was
prone to ascribing a revolutionary character to classical themes ( Euphorion ). The rep¬
resentative nature of expressionism is reflected in the programmatic formulations of ze-
471
I Summary
nitists, in the poetry of
С.
Goli,
Josef
Kalmer,
Georg
Kulka,
and as regards the realm of
fine arts, in the creative work of
Vilko
Gecan and
Egon Schiele, liiere was
a pronounced
interest in Russian postrevolutionary art: in Proletkult, Lunacharsky, scythism in the
poetry of A.
Blok, Mayakovsky,
imaginism. The poetry of Igor Severyanin is from his
emigre phase, and the verses of the dynamist Valentin Parnakh are from the period when
he worked in Paris. The poetry of French poets reflects late symbolist aspirations and the
aspirations of literary cubism, built on the tradition of G.
Apollinaire:
Marcel
Sauvage,
Paul
Dermée, André
Salmon. Apart from the poetry of Valentin Parnakh, motion was
also suggested by the metaphors and images in the poetry of the Chilean poet Vicente
Huidobro, the founder of creationism and a member of the group of young Spanish and
Hispano-American ultraist
poets.
From issue number five, published in
1921,
Zenit
was truly a forum-like organ of the
movement. It was programmatically strengthened by Ivan
Golľs Zenitist
Manifesto, writ¬
ten in German, and The Manifesto ofZenitism by Lj.
Micie,
I. Goll and B. Tokin, printed
as the first volume in the periodical s library. Writers from Belgrade who did not wish
to adjust their individual poetics to the programme concept of the group severed their
connections with
Zenit
through a statement published in the Zagreb periodical
Kritika
[Criticism] (towards the end of
1921).
His closeness to zenitism, already quite obvious at
the time, motivated I. Goll to reject expressionism in his text entitled
Der Expressionis¬
mus stirbt
(issue no.
8),
for the sake of innovativeness that he considered to be outside the
boundaries of the recognised and the known linguistic and artistic norms, such as, for
example, the pristine freshness of words, the youthfulness of scythism and Balkanism.
The
dadaist
Dragan Aleksić
was formed as an artist in the artistic environment of
Prague, where his texts, belonging to the genres of manifestos, poetry and dada-essays,
were written. At that time, he started contributing to
Zenit. Aleksić s
manifesto entitled
Dadaism
(issue no.
3),
published before the manifesto of zenitism, substitutes abstrac¬
tion for reality, shifting sense and reason in the direction of futurist-dadaist brutism,
expressing preference for
Melchior Vischer
and his novel A Second through the Brain,
suprematism, circus art, communism, the secondary-abstract primitiveness of the
occult-nervous
dada
man.
The programmatic statements about the renewal of poetic language are to be found
in the basis of
I. Golľs
manifesto Word as Origin. An Attempt at New Poetry (issue no.
9).
For his starting point, he relied on fundamental futurist and cubist ideas. The futurist
poetics provided the basis for the concept of an austere, unambiguous poetic word, a
solitary sentence. The similarity with cubism is reflected in the realistic character of the
reduced futurist word. These programmatic principles implicitly determined the verses
of Lj.
Micie in
the cycle of numbered poems entitled Words in Space , as well as the
poem of I. Goll Paris
brennt,
published as the second volume in Zenit s library.
Even during the course of its first year of publication,
Zenit
established direct con¬
tacts with Hungarian (the activists gathered around
Lajos Kassák)
and Czech avant-
Summary I
472
garde
artists
(Karel
Teiges
Devětsil [Nim
Forces]
movement, whose seat was in Prague,
and later with its branch in Brno). The early links established between
Zenit
and
Devětsil
originated from a time when this avant-garde group did not yet have its programme
organ, but appeared in older and more recent periodicals (F.
Smejkal).
Thus
Zenit was
the only foreign periodical to publish (in issue no.
7-8)
the works of Czech avant-garde
artists, stylised in the spirit of magic realism and
primitivism.
Even though he had, as a contributor to
Zenit, programmatically
proclaimed the
death of expressionism, having become a member of the editorial staff, Goll affirmed
the work of the followers of the expressionist periodicals
Der
Sturm and Die
Aktion
(К.
Heynicke,
С.
Einstein, F. R. Behrens,
C. Goll, J. v.
Heemskerk)
and of Berlin dadaists (R.
Hausmann, R. Schlichter).
From the point of view of poetics development, the first definition of zenitism
was based on explicit references to expressionism. Soon afterwards, the intention was
to achieve more original programme postulates, in keeping with the slogans and ideas
about Barbarogenius, Balkanism, Balkanocentrism; in early
1922,
these ideas would as¬
sume real gravity in the light of further development of the magazine and the movement.
This phase of development was still characterised by the co-editorial work of Lj.
Місіс
and I. Goll, but now Goll gave
Місіс
priority when it came to writing programmatic-
poetic texts, showing no inclination to add his own authorial touches to these texts.
At the same time, the magazine made a forceful turn in the direction of the Russian
avant-garde based in Berlin. The main mediators were Ilya
Ehrenburg
with his book A
все-таки она
eepmumcja {And Yet It Does Move), and the artistic tandem Ehrenburg-El
Lissitzky with their magazine Veshch. It can be claimed that
Zenit was
among the first
periodicals in Europe to provide a broad and comprehensive insight into new artistic
trends in Russia. This refers, first of all, to notions and phenomena such as constructiv¬
ism, production art and veshchism, some of which found their place in the theory and
programme of
zenitist
poetry; the ideational substratum of a poem was designated its
subject , whereas the term construction comprised the process of constructing, that
is, producing poetic language and its result: poem-construction. Before the publication
of its Russian double issue (no.
17-18, 1922),
Zenit
published various contributions by
Russian artists, poets and writers: V. Tatlin
s
Draft of a Monument to the
Wird
Interna¬
tional, the programme of the Veshch periodical, the poetry of S. Yesenin and V. Khleb-
nikov, an overview of the development of Russian avant-garde art, presented by means
of a description of new types of exhibitions and a new way of exhibiting works of fine
art. The above-mentioned double issue
oí
Zenit,
edited by
Ehrenburg
and Lissitzky, rep¬
resents their programmatic and ideational attitude, expressed in the Veshch periodical,
but also provides a cross-section of the innovations and current trends in the sphere of
literature, fine arts, theatre, music and film, starting from the prerevolutionary futurists,
through the suprematists, right down to the contemporary practice of the constructiv-
ists (El Lissitzky
s
PROUN projects, the works of V. Tatlin and A. Rodchenko).
473
I Summary
The poetry of domestic contributors of the period was dadaistically estranged, in
view of its production of meaning (D.
Aleksić),
as well as
intertextual
and quotational
(S.
Živanović),
polemical with elements of blasphemy
(Ve
Poljanski),
programmatic
(J.
Mester),
realised based on the principle of radio-film lyricism (Lj.
Micie),
emotion¬
ally coloured, its starting point being W. Kandinskys theory of inner sound, and sub¬
sequently made devoid of meaning through
dadaist
constructions
(M. S. Petrov).
The
genre of poetic travel writing (B. Poljanski) was also practised.
Theatrical innovations were to be found in surrealistic and futuristic surround¬
ings. The former notion was understood and realised in the tradition of
Apollinaire,
and is encountered in the foreword to Ivan Golls play
Methusalem oder Der ewige Bürger
(Potsdam, 1922).
The latter is present in the short synthetic form of futurist theatre (E.
Dundek, A. Čebular),
whose literary role models were Marinetti s theatrical syntheses,
also published in
Zenit.
Lj.
Місіс
cultivated a synthetic form of expression in the sphere
ofprose.
Foreign poets who contributed to
Zenit in
1922
included the dynamist V. Parnakh,
the Spanish
ultraist
G. de
Torre, the
Devětsil
poets
A. Černík,
A. Hoffmeister, H.
Walden
and F. R.
Behrens
from Germany; French poetry and prose were represented by P. Al-
bert-Birot, P.
Dermée
and
}.
Epstein.
In the year
1923,
when only four issues of the periodical were published (February-
May), priority was given to public activities. These had actually begun in mid-1922, by a
publicity trip to Germany, the purpose of which was to affirm
Zenit
and zenitism and to
establish connections with artists who were of the same or similar artistic orientation,
and were continued through a programmatic concept comprising the organisation of
zenitist
evening events, lectures, and attempting to establish
a
zenitist
theatrical practice
and make it independent (the Zagreb group Traveller).
The poetry of the most consistent followers of zenitism contained, to a greater de¬
gree than before, revolutionary pathos, to which were added cognitive forms of anticapi-
talism
(Ve
Poljanski), as opposed to the other contributors, in whose verses the attitude
towards woman (M. Mikac) and the experience of the material world
(A. Jutronić)
were
permeated with a futurist sensibility. Polemics in verse continued, containing direct al¬
lusions to political issues (S.
Živanović),
as did topics deeply involved in cultural issues
(Ve
Poljanski). In his programmatic text Radio Film and the
Zenitist
Vertical of Spirit, Lj.
Місіс
insisted on a fusion of poetry and film.
Issue no.
24,
of May
1923,
wherein the polemic with
Stjepan Radić
and his view of
Europeanism and Balkanism turned into a critique of Croatian culture in its entirety,
marked the end of the successful Zagreb phase
οι
Zenit.
Soon afterwards,
Місіс
moved
the editorial office to Belgrade, where he strove for a number of months to relaunch the
magazine, his efforts hindered by the lack of enthusiasm of the new surroundings and
the negative reactions of the press in Belgrade. All these obstacles notwithstanding, in
February
1924
issue no.
25
came out, to be followed in October, after an uncommonly
Summary I
474
long pause, by the eight-fold issue no.
26-33,
which, in its turn, was followed by issues no.
34
and no.
35,
in November and December respectively.
In the course of its being published in Belgrade, there began a synthetic phase in
Zenit s work. As a consequence of the introduction of a new programmatic course, co¬
operation with some contributors came to a stop. Thus
Risto
Ratković
claimed that he
broke with zenitism when he felt that he would see it as a synthesis of all the rebellious
isms (issue no.
38,1926).
The synthetic phase of avant-gardism did not weaken the international aspect of
Zenit.
On the contrary, during the course of
1924
it was even somewhat intensified, only
to decrease with time in favour of contributions supplied by the periodicals domestic
collaborators, open to the trends and influences of surrealism and the literary and artis¬
tic left. We single out the contributions of J.
Voskovec,
a member of
Devétsil,
the Italian
futurists R.
Vasari
and S. Pocarini, the Russian futurist G. Petnikov, with whom direct
cooperation was established owing to I.
Ehrenburg. An
expressionistically coloured po¬
etic experience, inspired by spiritual forces, dominated in the poetry of F. R.
Behrens,
H.
Walden,
К.
Liebmann
and the Swedish poet living in Finland Elmer Diktonius, a leftist
with socialist leanings.
Zenit
manifested an uneven attitude towards surrealism. Even though it rejected
surrealism as a product of the bourgeois culture, it did accept some of its forms and
ways of acting. It opted for some typically surrealist themes or phenomena, calculated
to achieve the effect of aesthetic, social or political provocation. In the manner of Paris
surrealists, zenitists sought to thematise the Moroccan crisis, Marxism, or were prone
to propagandistic-provocative public appearances and public action by means of texts
written using the genre of the open letter, poster or pamphlet. On the level of manifestos
(R.
Ratković),
their attitude towards
primitivism
and the cult of the East coincided with
the attitude of French surrealists in their early phase, which was especially manifested in
issue no.
3
of the journal Surrealist Revolution.
Zenit
filled its leftist ideational inclinations with social and revolutionary content
and views about the need for a more direct influence on the physical, social and political
reality. While some contributions assumed the form of an open protest (for example,
on the occasion of the politically motivated murder of the Bulgarian poet
Geo Milev),
poetry affirmed proletarian principles or gave priority to social themes, related to work¬
ers: Poljanski,
Micie. In
order to achieve the same or similar aims, zenitists resorted to
photography or political posters, permeated with an
apriori
political humour and gro-
tesqueness
-
the works of the Russian artist Viktor Denisov Deni.
In the course of its publication,
Zenit also
paid attention to the nature of the mag¬
azine, to its formal side and to magazine types. When it had solidified its position in
theoretical terms, from a magazine-almanac of an informal group of collaborators
Zenit
turned into a programmatic organ. The increasingly intense development of
dadaism
at
the expense of the original movement drove B. Poljanski towards initiating the
adadaist,
475
I Summary
antidadaist review Dada-Jok
(1922).
A shift in the direction of
propagandistic
activities
in Germany (Munich, Berlin) pointed to the need for publishing a poster issue of the
magazine, printed as a supplement to the so-called German issue, a kind of a thematic
catalogue of
zenitist
contributions intended for the purpose of agitation. The printing of
Zenit in
the folio format, the so-called Zen it-diary, could be viewed within the framework
of the Russian avant-garde slogan about art coming out into the street, for the periodi¬
cal came out before the Yugoslav public with a bold request for establishing diplomatic
relations with Soviet Russia. Similar experiments continued later on: these included the
Russian issue, edited by I.
Ehrenburg
and El Lissitzky, its cover stylised in the
construc¬
tivist
and PROUN manner in honour
oí
Zenit, an
issue in the form of a catalogue of
the International exhibition mounted by
Zenit, a
new genre of a periodic publication,
made up of the texts comprising the programme of the
zenitist
evening events held in
Zagreb (issue no.
21,1923),
an issue composed in the genre of the calendar. Finally, let us
mention the consistently maintained February rhythm of publication, overwhelmingly
reminiscent of the beginnings of the Italian futurism in Paris, combined over time with
the October rhythm, probably as a result of establishing an inspirational analogy with
the Russian October.
Summary I
476
Irina
Subotić
The Visual Culture of the
Zenit
Periodical and Its Publications
Although literature was the dominant discipline in the
Zenit
periodical, it is pos¬
sible to follow its ideologically coloured visual culture from the very beginning, both on
the pages of the magazine and in all
Ze/z/f-related
publications and events: in special edi¬
tions published by
Zenit, in
leaflets, posters, at exhibitions and within the framework of
the
Zenit
gallery, that is, the
Zenit
collection. The
Місіс
brothers, Ljubomir and
Branko
Ve
Poljanski,
advocated the view that all creative potentials, ideas and implementations
should be expressions of the current era and that, in the contemporary social and cul¬
tural context, visual effects are the crucial factors of communication. That is why the
content of
Zenit
-
theoretical articles, manifestoes, criticism, views in favour of specific,
mostly young artists and critical European artistic trends and phenomena, reproduc¬
tions and the entire graphic and typographic layout of all
Zemï-related
publications, were
mainly functional. They contributed to the syncretic concept of zenitism in all its phases
of development. The interpretation of the visual culture presented in
Zenit
is therefore
identical to the meaning of zenitism in its entirety
-
as an avant-garde movement within
the framework of European, Western, Russian
-
Eastern, and Central-European avant-
garde. Almost every European trend in the sphere of fine arts that was of topical interest
in the early
1920s
was reflected in
Zenit.
Following the initial clear orientation towards
expressionism, the focus being on young, unrecognised artists, zenitism practiced the
ambivalent interpretation of
dadaism,
futurism and accepted the new wave of cubism.
In its mature phase,
Zenit
introduced new, abstract art of varying orientation: from the
activism and lyrical abstraction of Kandinsky, to various geometrical tendencies and
constructivist
movements
-
purism, neoplasticism,
Bauhaus,
especially constructivism,
productionism, and functionalism.
Tlie
first issues of
Zenit
-
both the articles and reproductions
-
were characterised by
expressionist individualism and artists who were critically disposed towards the bour¬
geois society of the early 20th century
(Vilko
Gecan,
Egon Schiele,
Rolf HenkI,
Сапу
Hauser, Franz Rronstert, Jacoba
van Heemskerk).
But even though it was dominant, ex¬
pressionism was not the only movement present in the initial phase of
Zenit,
very early
on, cubism, futurism and
dadaism
featured on its pages.
In his article Theatre in the Air ,
Bosko Tokin
pointed out the multidisciplinary
experiments of the Italian futurist
Fedele
Azari, who looked at the airplane as an exten¬
sion of the body , with dynamism and motion, pantomime, acrobatics, set design and
477
I Summary
urban
spectacles,
unconventional sounds and an anti-painterly way of using colour. In¬
troducing the public to contemporary Paris exhibitions,
Rastko Petrović
presented the
absence of
sentimentalism
and any narrativity in diverse variants of the then influential
cubism, singling out the works of Ossipe Zadkine, Alexander Archipenko and Jacques
Lipchitz
-
sculptors with whom Ljubomir
Місіс,
director and editor if
Zenit
and his
brother, poet and later painter
Branko
Ve Poljanski
would immediately establish per¬
sonal contacts. The French theoretician
Florent
Fels
explained cubism as a powerful
means of creating a new aesthetics and a synthesis of space , which
Zenit
underscored
by printing reproductions of works by artists of various cubist orientations
-
A. Gleizes,
L. Survage, R. Delaunay, and later P. Picasso, V.
Foretić-Vis,
О.
Zadkine,
J. Czáky
and
especially A. Archipenko. A poeticised variant of cubism was also advocated in
Ženitby
young Czech authors
-
poets, painters and architects gathered round
Karel
Teige
and
leftist revues
-
J.
Havlíček,
A. Wachsman, L.
Süss,
В.
Piskać, A.
Hoffmeister.
Dadaism
was given an important place in
Zenit
-
both in the form of favourable
presentation (the periodical published reproductions of works of Berlin dadaists George
Grosz
and Rodolf
Schlichter)
and with critical and ironic commentary. The presence of
dadaism
was the result of the socialising of Poljanski and
Dragan Aleksić
in Prague, the
latter s texts on Schwitters and on Tatlin, the meeting with Berlin dadaists, joint actions,
matinees and evening events staged with collaborators in many Yugoslav cities. The
launching of
Branko
Ve Poljanskťs
periodical
Dada-Jok [jok
(colloquial)
=
nope, transla¬
tor s note] (issue number two was published as a leaflet entitled Dada-Jok. Zenit-Ekspres)
brought to the fore the similarities and the differences between two avant-garde move¬
ments
-
zenitism and
dadaism,
through the use of
dadaist
devices within the framework
of zenitism for the purpose of refuting
dadaism
itself. Dada-Jok was characterised by the
most radical graphic design yet, in keeping with the concept of the periodical, which
presupposes the simultaneous presence of
dadaist, antidadaist
and
adadaist
methods,
typographic freedom in dealing with words and letters, photomontages, collages, pho¬
tographs containing allusive inscriptions, works of amateurs and the use of non-artistic
objects in conjunction with slogans and
dada
poetry, graphic signs and the like. From
December
1922,
Місіс
exhibited a markedly negative attitude towards
dadaism,
from
the moment when the programme
oí
Zenit
gained a new character, within the constella¬
tion of the European art oriented towards surrealism and Bretons irreconcilably nega¬
tive attitude towards
dadaism.
And even though the later period of
Zenit
is marked by a
number of elements and personalities close to surrealism, the plastic arts of the periodi¬
cal did not follow that phenomenon.
Місіс
expressed his programmatic principle concerning the changed nature of art,
that is, nonrepresentional, abstract painting, in his reviews of exhibitions and in the theo¬
retical article Contemporary New and Surmised Painting , in which he abandoned the
ideas of expressionism and argued in favour of art based on the principle of non-mimet-
icism, freedom of creation, the secondary place of form, the precedence of the spiritual
-
abstract
-
absolute , relying on the examples of Kandinsky, Chagall and Archipenko.
Summary I
478
Zenit
affirmed the work of Hungarian leftist activists, led by
Lajos Kassák.
This
meant approaching geometrical abstraction and
constructivist
tendencies as a collective
act. At the same time, in the course of the year
1922,
Russian avant-garde assumed con¬
crete and applied forms in
Zenit:
the periodical reproduced Vladimir Tallin s Draft of a
Monument to the Third International, a brilliant Utopian and visionary work of new tech¬
nology and ideology, whereas Rodchenko
s
kiosk became a meeting point of all zenitists
in Lj.
Місіс
s zenitist
radio-film Shimmy in the Graveyard at the Latin Quarter . Owing
to intensive cooperation with I.
Ehrenburg
and El Lissitzky, editors of the Veshch
(Вещъ)
periodical and the most prominent representatives of the Russian Berlin,
Zenit
followed
the phenomena of topical interest in Russia
-
public celebrations and urban spectacles,
the adorning of ships, trains, streetcars, the squares and the streets of Moscow and St
Petersburg, which strengthened
Місіс
s
view that exhibitions had to have a social role,
that is to say, they ought to be intended for the broadest circles of viewers. The peak of
this editorial policy is The Russian Issue
(Zenit, no.
17-18),
dedicated in its entirety to
Russian avant-garde in all artistic disciplines. The issue was edited by
Ehrenburg
and El
Lissitzky (the latter is the author of the cover design for this issue of
Zenit, in
the form of
his project of the new
-
PROUN).
There were echoes of Russian avant-garde in the
Zenit
criticism as well:
Ve
Poljan-
ski
wrote a text entitled Through the Russian Exhibition in Berlin , which A. B. Nakov
considered to be, on the basis on any criteria, among the most inspired and profound
reviews of this exhibition . Poljanski did not hide his elation over the revolution carried
out by Russian avant-garde artists
-
Malevich, El Lissitzky,
O. Rosanova, Tatlin,
Rod¬
chenko,
Gabo,
Chagall, Burliuk, X. Bogouslavskaya, Archipenko,
Altman,
A. Exter.
A certain balance in establishing relations between the East and the West was
achieved in
Zenit
by following the concept of neoplasticism in
Theo
van Doesburg s
text Will to Style , which advocates the ideas of collectivism, logic, synthesis, energy,
truth and purity. On the other hand, the apologia of the social influence of art and ar¬
chitecture
-
which became dominant during a later phase of zenitism
-
was contributed
to by
Jozef
Peeters
s A
Catechesis of Friends of Art : in the propaedeutic form often
commandments, the text points out the idea of a social project in which geometrical
abstraction would become a part of modern life. For a practical application of this con¬
cept,
Zenit
published works of objective abstraction
-
by Peeters, L. Lozowick, H. Beh-
rens-Hangeler, and a joint collage by
Місіс
and
[o Klek
entitled In the Name of Zenitism.
The functionalisation of such ideas had already been promoted on the pages
oí
Zenit
through the works of A.-P.
Gallien,
К.
Teige,
L.
Kassák,
L.
Moholy-Nagy, El Lissitzky,
Α.
Rodchenko,
К.
Malevich,
M. S. Petrov,
Jo Klek.
Fitting in with the programme of the
Balkanisation of Europe, in his text Anti-social Art Should be Destroyed
Місіс
argued
in favour of the
internationalisation
ofall
cultural values, underlined the importance of
folk skills and gave preference to craft schools over museums
-
which he described as
tombs and the pantheons of idleness . During a later phase, the periodical increasingly
reprinted political caricatures as a substitute for classical fine arts works. They provided
479
I Summary
ironie
comments at the expense of capitalism, the bourgeois society, the League of Na¬
tions, functioning in the same manner as Micics systematically fought battle with bu¬
reaucracy, the state administration, the police, the media and the like. Moreover, it was a
declaration of war to the entire imperialist-capitalist, non-democratic world, made in a
Utopian hope that it was possible to build a new, different and better world.
In absolute discontinuity with the Serbian graphic art of the time, Mihailo S.
Petrov
( a new asset of ours , as
Zenit
wrote) marked the first phase of zenitism
(1921)
by
his black-and-white linocuts programmatically provided for the pages of
Zenit
{Self-por¬
trait with a Pipe, Fragments of Our Sins /The Sound of Today/, Linoleum, Rhythm,
Zenit).
Petrov,
who later contributed to other avant-garde periodicals as well
(Dada-Tank, Üt),
represents an example of a dual allegiance, to both expressionist and abstract art, close
to Kandinsky. His linocuts, made in symbiosis with poetry, were especially valuable as
such, being the first examples in Serbian and Yugoslav art.
In the mature phase
oí
Zenit
(1923-1925),
the most memorable mark of
zenitist
art
was left by
Josip
Seissel (known in zenitism under the pseudonyms Jo and Josif
Klek).
At
international exhibitions in the
1920s
(held in Belgrade, Bucharest, Bielefeld, Moscow),
he represented
Zenit,
which published his collages, photomontages, architectural drafts,
drawings, watercolours, temperas, sketches for theatre costumes and a curtain, adver¬
tisements, ex-libris etc. He was responsible for the graphic design and layout of some of
Zenit s editions (Effect on Defect and The Monkey Phenomenon by
Marijan Mikac),
and
he was also the author of the
Zenit
exhibition poster. His abstract and multidisciplinary
work was used by
Місіс
to identify PAFAM
A
(Papier-Farben-Malerei,
the Serbian ver¬
sion of which was ARBOS
-
(hOARtija-BOja-Slika [paper-colour-picture]) as an authen¬
tic phenomenon of
zenitist
art. His work is characterised by narrativity, humour and
irony of
dadaist
provenance. Relying on the
constructivist
principles of the valuation of
materials and exploration of space,
Klek
became involved in non-representational art,
quite exceptional in Croatian and Yugoslav art of the early
1920s.
For the purpose of the
internationalisation
of the movement,
Місіс
used the work
of A. Archipenko for his programmatic text concerning
zenitist
approach to the sculp¬
ture. In
1923,
he published a luxurious, richly illustrated monograph-album Archipenko
-
New Plastic, containing a foreword entitled Towards Opticoplastics in which he envis¬
aged a kinetic future of the sculpture.
The current creative achievements and the theoretical premises of abstract art were
most complexly reflected in
Zenit
by Wassily Kandinsky.
Місіс
published reproductions
of his work, emotionally presenting him to the Yugoslav public as a great and famous
Russian master
-
an artist and ideologue of a new epoch in painting , the father of ab¬
stract or the so-called absolute painting , an apostle of man s mystical creative soul! . In
a text written for
Zenit,
Kandinsky specified the basic artistic principles (content, form,
analysis, synthesis, study of art, etc.). However, even though Kandinsky
s
works existed
in Belgrade and were exhibited, even though he was written about and his texts were
Summary I
480
translated, the reception
o! his
art could be discerned solely in rare paintings by
Jovan
Bijelić
-
Abstract Landscape and Struggle between Day and Night (the latter one was in
Micics collection until his death).
As for
Vladi
mir
Tatlin, he is a model, leitmotif, symbol and paradigm for zenitism:
first of all, D.
Aleksić
wrote of tatlinism as machinism, in
1922
Tatlin was presented as
a constructivist, and in
1923
zenitism got involved in the ideas of Tatlins constructrv-
ism. His draft design for A Monument to the Third International, published a number of
times in
Zenit
and in
zenitist
publications, was identified with the greatest technological
achievements of the 20th century, the ideals of internationalism, Bolshevism, communi¬
cation possibilities, great artistic imagination, cosmic processes, planetary proportions
and geometrical order. He was given an important role in
Micić s
texts Shimmy in the
Graveyard at the Latin Quarter and The Categorical Imperative of the
Zenitist
School
of Poetry , which meant a conscious identification of zenitism with the Utopian model
of the Monument itself and the entire Russian avant-garde, and even the Communist
International.
When it came to fine arts criticism,
Zenit
dealt rather harshly with all the remnants
of previous times, with vague attitudes and petty bourgeois norms,
л їШ
artists who did
not opt for exploratory creative postulates, with poor organisers of moderate exhibi¬
tions, with followers of imported ideas. A sarcastic attitude was manifested towards well
known critics and writers
-
Isidora
Sekulić, Jovan Skerlić, Miroslav Krleža,
and espe¬
cially towards
Bogdan Popović,
on account of his lack of knowledge of the principles of
contemporary artistic creation, especially the importance of Negro art for cubism. The
criticism was direct, ironic, and sharp: by negating traditional and conventional trends,
Zenit
affirmed the values of the young (Slovenian
УонѓЛ
Cluh first of all,
Božidar Jakac
and France
Kralj,
Avgust Cernigoj, then
Jovan Bijelić,
Mihailo
S.
Petrov
etc.).
The establishment of a collection of avant-garde works for
Zeniťs
galler}7,
presented
to the public at the editorial office of the periodical, first in Zagreb, then in Belgrade,
and for a while even in the Paris suburb of Meudon, reflected great social and educa¬
tional ambitions on the part of
Zenit Tlie
gallery advertised (starting from the double
issue
17-18,1922)
works of artists from Russia, France, Yugoslavia, Denmark, Hungary,
Czechoslovakia, Holland, Germany, and the United States. The works were advertised
as futurism, cubism, expressionism, ornamental cubism, suprematism, constructivism,
neoclassicism and the like . This broad scope reflects realistically the situation on the art
scene of the
1920s,
and it would provide the basis for
Zeniťs
great International exhibi¬
tion of new art, organised in Belgrade by
Micie in
April
1924,
featuring more than one
hundred exhibits by very significant
20th-century
artists (Kandinsky, Moholy-Nagy,
El Lissitzky, Archipenko, Delaunay, Charchoune, Gleizes, Peeters, Zadkine,
Paladini,
Prampolini and others). Some of the participants were of local significance only (Bal-
samadjieva, Katchulev, Bojadjiev,
Willink,
Hansen,
Medgyes, Freudenau, Helen Griin-
hoff-Elena Gringova), and the domestic scene was represented by
Vilko
Gecan, Jo
Klek,
V.
Foretić-Vis, Vjera
Bìller and
M.
Petrov.
Judging by the reviews,
Branko
Ve
Poljanski
481
I Summary
also exhibited his work, a collage that has so far remained unidentified. The exhibition
did not receive a lot of publicity, and was therefore not very well attended, but
Місіс
later
wrote No boycott had any effect
-
evidently convinced of the purpose and the value of
such an undertaking.
Zenit
spoke in favour of modern means of communication
-
photograph, film,
poster, advertisement. A photograph conveys a message from the text, pictures illustrate
literary ideas (I. Goll
s
Paris
brennt);
photo-portraits are documents about personali¬
ties, theatrical performances are preserved thanks to to photographic reproductions; a
collage photograph assumes the status of an autonomous work, and as a medium, it is
in the service of the idea and the programme of the periodical (Dada-Jok, the photo
collages of Jo
Klek
and
Місіс
In the Name ofZenitism, Politics
-
Polka, the zenitism seg¬
ment of the international exhibition held in Moscow in
1926).
Zenit
regularly followed
film as an art form, advertised it, had a critical attitude towards the repertoire, and the
silhouette of Charlie Chaplin, published a number of times in the periodical, assumed
the role of a symbol of the art of film in general. The text Modern Advertising (sup¬
ported by a reproduction of a work by Jo
Klek)
stressed the necessity of the readability
and impressiveness of the message, form and colour, first of all by means of photogra¬
phy.
Zenit
offers, as the best example of publicity, a tailor s dummy made on the basis of
sculptures by Rudolf Belling, from one Belgrade haberdashery shop. It is an example of
an almost abstract form applied in life ( without a head, without a chest, without legs,
without arms ). From the very first issue of
Zenit,
the exceptional graphic design of the
advertisement for the manufactured goods of
Adler,
Borovic
&
Neusser from Zagreb
was very much in evidence, made up of dynamically arranged triangles and double lines
(close to the works of El Lissitzky, especially his poster Fight White with Red). In post¬
ers and leaflets printed for various events, lectures, some issues of the periodical,
Zenit
paid particular attention to typographic and semantic details: the best example was the
poster announcing the Great
zenitist
evening event of January 31st,
1923
in Zagreb, con¬
sisting of four Malevich-like squares and typical
zenitist
slogans ( Zenitism is fighting
for a new Balkan art, for eternal youth, for the victory of Barbarogenius , Against Euro¬
pean paralysis, against sentimentality, against literature, for a Balkanisation of Europe );
Tatlin s Draft of A Monument to the Third International was also included
-
which clearly
positions
Zenit
within the framework of the international scene, constructivism and
action-filled future.
By way of its programmatic orientation,
Zenit
introduced daring and unconven¬
tional typographic solutions as a specific
pictural
and scriptural form of action, with an
autonomous cultural and visual voice. The outlook, the layout and the dimensions of
the periodical often changed, which perhaps depended on its finances, but was certainly
connected with the general orientation of zenitism as a movement. As an important seg¬
ment of the overall editorial policy, the outlook of the periodical consistently followed
the changes in its concept and content: the first three issues contain an expressionist-
secession
stylisation
of the title, using neo-Gothic-type letters, which some avant-garde
Summary I
482
artists (such as Sdrwiiters and
Kassák)
were very fond of, with a Cyrillic
3 [=
Z] thrown
in among Latin letters for good measure. This parallel use of both scripts would remain
characteristic
oí
Zenit
as iong as it continued to be published. Staring with issue number
four, changes were introduced that gradually led to purely geometricised,
constructivist
and functional solutions. Many of the issues had reproductions of works of art on the
cover as an expression of the programmatic orientation of the periodical. The unique¬
ness of each issue of
Zenit was
enhanced by the subsequent marking of each copy by
hand, using numbered rubber stamps, in line with El Lissitzky s idea
oí
constructing a
book.
Micie syncretically
connected word and image, sense and meaning, message and
idea. In his book Rescue Car (published in
1922
as a second edition of the banned book
of poems
Λ
Hundredfold Damnation on You), Malevich s
suprematist
method of juxta¬
posing black and white areas was used to visually underline the banned verses and some
incriminated words.
Through its graphic identity,
Zenit
determined the guidelines of the avant-garde
movement: the typographic solutions were instrumental in the contextualisation of po¬
lemics, criticism and loud statements, manifestoes and the overall programme. On the
covers of
zenitist
publications {Rescue Car, Topsy-Turvy, Anti-Europe) and other printed
materials (posters, leaflets containing verbal messages, advertisements), we encounter
the PROUN system, an agonistic and dynamic, non-meditative immersion into the
multilayered spatial and temporal representation as a model of the modern world.
The unmistakeably modern sensibility is read in relation to the architecture
presented in
Zenit: Tatlins
Draft of A Monument to the
Titírd
International,
Micićs
text
about purism, excerpts from
Le Corbusier
and
Ozenfanťs
periodical
ĽEsprit
Nouveau,
the article New Systems of Building , signed Architect P.
T.,
Viktor
Kovačics
Slaveks
building in Zagreb, singled out as the only valuable Yugoslav edifice, reproductions of
A. Loos s buildings
-
the best example of Contemporary Architecture E. Mendel¬
sohns Einstein Tower and the projects of T. van
Doesburg
and
С
van
Eesteren,
con¬
nected with W. Gropius
s
text International Architecture . Micics text Belgrade with¬
out Architecture criticised the revival of the tradition but the neglect of the only one
that is autochthonous
-
that of a Balkan building.
Ve
Poljanski
sharply criticised the
conservative-looking Pavilion of the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes at the In¬
ternational Exhibition of Decorative and Industrial Art in Paris in
1925,
for it did not
reflect the actual vitality of modernism and the ideas of nations creators. On the other
hand, the article is full of praise for the streamlined pavilion of
Le
Corbusier and
Ozen¬
fanťs
periodical
ĽEsprit
Nouveau
and the Russian
constructivist
pavilion designed by
K. Melnikov
-
the most interesting one in the entire exhibition . Despite its emphatic
insistence on functionality,
Zenit was
also open to visionary, imaginative, almost ab¬
stract architecture: it published reproductions of sketches Zeniteum I and Zeniteum II
(issue no.
35)
and Villa
Zenit
(issue no.
36)
by Jo
Klek,
these being the only works by a
Yugoslav architect published in this periodical.
483
I Summary
In its final years,
Zenit
found it increasingly difficult to get published; its Utopian as¬
pirations gradually petered out, which led to its isolation and the historisation of its own
past, accompanied by increasingly political and
documentarist
activities; the number
of contributors gradually diminished, and the periodical began to be published irregu¬
larly. This was followed by police raids and bans, and
Місіс
was exiled. After ten years in
refuge, he returned to Belgrade. He tried unsuccessfully to relaunch the periodical, but
this was the time of the German occupation and famine, of poverty and new ideologi¬
cal structures that followed the war. His wife and collaborator
Anuška
died, and
Місіс
increasingly led a quixotic struggle for values that were no longer recognised. Zenitism
remained in the distant past, which even the few remaining contemporaries did not re¬
member fondly. Interest in Zenitism began to revive in the
1960s,
and especially in the
1970s,
first in the sphere of literature, and then in the sphere of fine arts. New inter¬
pretations emerged, exhibitions were organised (The Third Decade
-
Constructive Paint¬
ing,
Branko
Ve
Poljanski,
Zenitism, Zenit
and the
1920s
Avant-garde and others) and a
number of relevant studies were published.
Zenit
provided the inspiration for
Branko
Vučićević
and
Karpo
Aćimović
Godina s
exceptional film Medusa Raft and numerous
theatrical plays, documentary dramas, video works, radio and television programmes,
novels and articles,
feuilletons,
anecdotes. Now the
Zenit
periodical has been digitalised,
reprinted, and some artists find in it a broad area of inspiration for the typographic and
pictural
realisation of their works (the
Fia
art group and
Publikums
calendars, New Mo¬
ment,
Mirko Ilić,
Paula
Scher).
Collectors express great interest in it; there is even a street
and a new magazine called
Zenit,
whose first issue appeared in June
2006,
reminiscent
of its namesake from the
1920s ,
an important European periodical , which left a deep
and lasting mark in Serbian culture
-
launched with the goal of preserving the spirit of
the time . In this way,
Micić s
Zenit
is revived in the best possible way.
Summary I
484
|
| any_adam_object | 1 |
| author | Golubović, Vidosava Subotić, Irina |
| author_facet | Golubović, Vidosava Subotić, Irina |
| author_role | aut aut |
| author_sort | Golubović, Vidosava |
| author_variant | v g vg i s is |
| building | Verbundindex |
| bvnumber | BV036059062 |
| ctrlnum | (OCoLC)644013799 (DE-599)BVBBV036059062 |
| format | Book |
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| id | DE-604.BV036059062 |
| illustrated | Illustrated |
| indexdate | 2024-12-20T14:05:52Z |
| institution | BVB |
| isbn | 9788670351820 |
| language | Undetermined |
| oai_aleph_id | oai:aleph.bib-bvb.de:BVB01-018950586 |
| oclc_num | 644013799 |
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| owner_facet | DE-12 |
| physical | 524 S. Ill. |
| publishDate | 2008 |
| publishDateSearch | 2008 |
| publishDateSort | 2008 |
| publisher | Narodna Biblioteka Srbije [u.a.] |
| record_format | marc |
| spellingShingle | Golubović, Vidosava Subotić, Irina Zenit Zenit Zeitschrift, Belgrad (DE-588)4480238-9 gnd |
| subject_GND | (DE-588)4480238-9 |
| title | Zenit |
| title_auth | Zenit |
| title_exact_search | Zenit |
| title_full | Zenit |
| title_fullStr | Zenit |
| title_full_unstemmed | Zenit |
| title_short | Zenit |
| title_sort | zenit |
| topic | Zenit Zeitschrift, Belgrad (DE-588)4480238-9 gnd |
| topic_facet | Zenit Zeitschrift, Belgrad |
| url | http://bvbr.bib-bvb.de:8991/F?func=service&doc_library=BVB01&local_base=BVB01&doc_number=018950586&sequence=000003&line_number=0001&func_code=DB_RECORDS&service_type=MEDIA http://bvbr.bib-bvb.de:8991/F?func=service&doc_library=BVB01&local_base=BVB01&doc_number=018950586&sequence=000004&line_number=0002&func_code=DB_RECORDS&service_type=MEDIA |
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